


like ink in water

by Donatello (jollypuppet)



Series: the chronicles of stiles' sofa [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Making Out, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-17
Updated: 2012-07-17
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jollypuppet/pseuds/Donatello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles sometimes wishes that someone had written a book on this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like ink in water

**Author's Note:**

> So, I decided to put all these pieces together into one series, because they basically work together.
> 
> Written for my friend [Winter](http://privatestilinski.tumblr.com).

Stiles sometimes wishes that somebody had written a book on how to deal with werewolves, because he's really having a hard time figuring this all out on his own.

He really wishes his life could be a lot more simple than it is, but then again, there's really no simplicity to be found when your best friend is a werewolf and the captain of the lacrosse team is a murderous lizard thing and the guy who keeps breaking into your house at ungodly hours in the evening is Derek Hale, who is still under the watchful eye of the police force.

Not to mention that Stiles' dad is the sheriff. So that's always good.

But he and Derek have fallen into this habit of enjoying each other's silent company, and Stiles isn't exactly sure where it came from, this... unspoken bond. Derek needed to get away from the betas, and Stiles was getting sick of watching Scott and Allison make out all the time, so they just fell into a sort of mutual rhythm with one another.

Sometimes they talk, sometimes they don't talk. Sometimes they argue, sometimes they complain to one another. Sometimes Derek shoves Stiles against a wall and makes him scream loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear, only to leave him trembling and trying to clean himself up before his dad comes home.

For the most part, though, they sit together and watch bad movies.

He's somewhere in the middle of _Jonah Hex_ and Stiles is actually really into it when he feels Derek behind him. Stiles finds it odd that, nowadays, he can sense Derek's presence before he can hear or see him, but he tries not to think about -- he'd probably just end up freaking himself out if he did.

So he glances over his shoulder, steadying the bowl of popcorn next to him with one hand, and regards Derek openly. "You wanna come watch?" He pats the back of the sofa heartily and turns back around, not bothering to see if Derek's accepted his invitation.

There's a shuffle of feet behind him, and he hears Derek make an aggravated sound in the back of his throat before he's rounding the sofa and falling into his normal place, slinging his arm over the back.

"I'm only staying because I like John Malkovich." he mumbles, and Stiles grins to himself.

\--

They're nearing the end of the movie (and Stiles is surprised at the minimal amount of information he's had to provide to explain the movie) when Derek sighs through his nose.

"I don't understand how Josh Brolin and Megan Fox's relationship works in this movie." he says nonchalantly, as if it's not too pressing of a topic for him. He taps his fingers against the back of the sofa. "I liked the guy with the bowler hat, personally."  


Stiles looks at him. "Really? It was kind of cool when he blew up the train earlier in the movie, you should have seen that."

"What are Erica and Isaac like while they're in school?"  
  
It's abrupt enough of a question that Stiles chokes on the handful of popcorn he's shoving into his face and coughs painfully for a second or two. Derek watches him disinterestedly from where he's sitting on the couch, and Stiles isn't sure whether or not he should feel angry for not getting a few helpful pats on the back.

But he straightens himself out and clears his throat once or twice to try to dislodge the corn kernels from his throat. He furrows his brow. "I don't know, normal? I always see them together, which is odd considering she's such a bombshell and he's... _Isaac_. Not that there's anything wrong with the guy."

"I'm not running to his defense." Derek reminds him, and Stiles can only nod. He somehow feels a little guilty about that, too.

Stiles tries to relax a little more, tries not to wonder why Derek's asking something like this. "I mean, other than acting like they're hatching some evil scheme at all hours of the day, they're pretty normal. They do their work, they eat lunch, they don't get shoved into lockers." He looks at Derek then, perplexed. "Why?"

But the werewolf really couldn't look any less interested when he asks, "Are they dating?"  
  
"What?" Stiles asks through a laugh. He can't be serious, right? Erica and Isaac? Who would even think of something like that? "I'm pretty sure they're not. I'm not really close with either of them, but they're not like Scott and Allison or anything."

Derek's frown only deepens. The credits on the television roll by quietly and he stares intently, as if trying to mull over his words before speaking. When he does speak, though, he turns his entire body to face Stiles, which is shocking in and of itself, but he also radiates a sort of smothered aggravation that, for once, _isn't_ directed at Stiles. "I left them for _five minutes_ to practice defensive maneuvers so I could find Boyd, and they were practically fucking against the wall like their own safety meant _nothing_ to them."

Stiles has to tries to take this in all at once and finds himself unable to. "Wait, were they _actually_ fucking or just... kind of fucking? Whatever that means?"  
  
"That's not the point!" Derek snaps, and Stiles puts his hands up, conceding the point. "This isn't some gossip circle, Stiles. They're taking the bite and _wasting_ it. They leave themselves defenseless and they're reckless and when I tell them to train, they make mistakes that not even _you_ would make."  
  
"I'll take that as a compliment." Stiles replies coolly.

Derek rolls his eyes. "What am I supposed to do if they get killed? I try to help them but they won't have any of it, and they just lay around and complain. I've been a werewolf all my life and they act like I'm nothing but some _donor_." The interesting thing is that he actually looks mildly concerned, underneath all that rage, and Stiles sighs.

He tries to swallow the odd motherly feeling bubbling up in his throat and reminds himself to speak without thinking. "Don't you ever think they took the bite for the wrong reasons?" Derek looks at him like he has three heads, but Stiles keeps going. "I mean, Isaac only did it cause he hated his dad, Erica wanted to be popular, and Boyd just wanted to make friends. Hell, even Jackson only did it for the lacrosse benefits.

"They're just teenagers, Derek." Stiles finishes. "They don't treat it the way you do because they've only had it for a few months, where you've had it all your life."

"You sound like you're only emphasizing my point." Derek tells him quietly.

Stiles tries to keep from deadpanning. "My _point_ ," he nearly spats, "is that maybe you should have listened to Scott when he told you to be more careful about building a pack. You took advantage of some weak teenagers, and now they haven't changed." Stiles shrugs. "Now they're just weak teenagers who can turn into dogs."

"We're not _dogs_." Derek growls, and Stiles notices that his teeth start to show a bit. The rage isn't directed at him as much as it's residual, something that Derek's been shoving down ever since the whole alpha thing became an issue, and Stiles figures that he's probably a little bit out of his league.

So he shrugs, and tries to simplify things. "Maybe they're just horny teenagers being horny teenagers." he explains. "They've been a pain in Scott and my ass for a while, so you have to be doing _something_ right."

"I'm not having a crisis of confidence, Stiles."

"Don't worry, I don't think that day will ever come."

Derek grimaces. "So they're just being obnoxious."

Stiles grins then, and he honestly feels as if he's made a legitimately genius -- although simple -- point. To be honest, getting through to Derek in any way could be considered a victory. "As teenagers tend to be." He puts his feet up on the coffee table and folds his arms behind his head. "Problem solved. That'll be five hundred bucks."

And though Derek still looks pretty annoyed (though he always looks mildly annoyed, as Stiles has noticed) he doesn't look nearly as angry. If anything, he's a bit miffed at this point, but that's nothing Stiles can't deal with.

"So, what are you gonna do now?" Stiles asks, and he wonders idly if it's a clichéd question to ask. He ejects the DVD and the screen defaults to the Sony home screen, bathing the room an artificial blue.

Derek rolls his shoulders next to him. "Nothing at the moment." he replies in a mumble. "I don't feel like dealing with it right now."

"That's healthy."

"Yeah, shut up." Derek rears up from his end of the couch then and grabs Stiles' wrist, knocking the remote from his hands and shoving him roughly onto his back.

Stiles regards him disbelievingly, because Derek really has the oddest tendency to do this at the weirdest of times. "You could at least let me put the movie away."  
  
Derek looms over him, and Stiles almost feels as if he's subconsciously pushing his body further into the cushions of the sofa. In any light, Derek looks predatory, but the blue of his eyes are picking up glints of light from the TV, and his eyes are brighter than normal.

"I think it can wait."  
  
Kissing Derek is a lot like... well, kissing a werewolf. Kissing something that could very easily move down and rip out Stiles' jugular with his teeth, but he's long since gotten used to the feeling of spending so much of his time with someone who could easily mutilate him. It's not terribly distracting anymore, because Derek's rough in a way that's exhilarating and new for Stiles.

He's kissed girls before, and they're pretty great with their softness and gentleness, but Derek makes out like he's pulling something from Stiles, like he's searching for something he can't quite find. He uses his tongue and his teeth and bites at Stiles' lips and fights for dominance, and Stiles doesn't like to admit that he tends to win. He'll hold Stiles by the shoulders at first, but then his hands slip down his arms and rest at his sides, hike his shirt up and scratch lightly at his ribs.

Derek sometimes forgets, too, that Stiles needs to breathe more often than he does, so Stiles turns his face to gasp. "Christ, dude, you're gonna kill me." he pants out, and Derek busies himself by mouthing up Stiles' neck from the collarbone until he reaches his ear. He doesn't pause when he scrapes his teeth down Stiles' jaw, tracing the bone and making him shiver.

"You'll get used to it." Derek growls, and he captures Stiles' lips again just as they both hear a car door slam from the driveway.

Stiles bolts to sit up a bit and ends up knocking his head against Derek's, and he grimaces, bringing his palm up to rub his forehead. Derek doesn't seem nearly as bothered, and almost looks half-tempted to go back to what he was doing.

"I'm not a murder suspect anymore." he says nonchalantly.

Stiles rolls his eyes as if that's the stupidest possible thing Derek could have said. "Right, because that's definitely gonna make my dad feel better about walking in on the two of us making out." He's able to roll out from underneath Derek's knee toward the window on the opposite side of the room.

Derek gets up slowly, and he watches Stiles, annoyed. "Climbing out a window. Feels like I'm in high school again."

"I sincerely hope you didn't do this much when you were in school."

Winter in California doesn't see much snow, but it's colder than normal and Stiles can feel the wind bite into his skin as he opens the window. Derek slings one leg over and does something he's never done before -- he leans over and pecks Stiles on the lips.

"I didn't."

Stiles doesn't realize he's said it until he's long gone.

\--

He's in the middle of a dark, tree-lined road about a week and a half later when his Jeep shuts down.

"You've got to be kidding me." Stiles sighs into the dark as he feels his car putter and die. He leans his forehead against the steering wheel, too tired to even bother panicking or planning a way to solve this problem before a bear comes out of the trees and tries to murder him.

He doesn't have time to think of a plan before he hears a horn sound behind him.

Stiles doesn't want to look outside, because he knows he's going to look outside and see that stupid Camaro pull up in front of him, and that's _way_ too freaky to be a coincidence. He hasn't seen Derek since he had to climb out Stiles' back window, and now he's just... there?

This can't be any weirder, Stiles thinks.

But Derek's knocking on his window and his sigh is probably louder than it should be, so he kicks open the door to the Jeep and gets out, greeting Derek with a dubious glare.

"Were you following me?"

"Do you really think I have so little to do?"  


Stiles sighs and closes the door to his car. "You've surprised me before, Mr. Hale."

Derek doesn't look bothered by the quip -- if anything, he looks more interested in why _Stiles_ is on a dark road in the middle of the night, so Stiles just shoves his hands into the pockets of his jacket and scans the area to busy himself.

"Danny and I had a study session a little while ago and he lost something in my room." he explains quietly. "I was just bringing it back to him, and I took a shortcut back."

"It's eleven o'clock."  
  
"It wasn't as short as I thought."

Derek still doesn't look surprised, but there's an odd sort of spark in his eyes that Stiles watches grow and expand, and he catches Derek almost smiling then, amused or mocking or whatever, but he's _smiling_ , ever so slightly, and that's what Stiles finds important. And he realizes he's staring.

Before he's able to say anything about it, though, he finds himself backed up against the door to his car by Derek's taller frame, and the werewolf kisses him in the darkness, right then and there, much less predatory and much less rough than he normally is. Completely unprompted and completely confusing to Stiles, he reacts only in time for Derek to pull away.

When he does, he doesn't look as amused, and his smile is gone, and Stiles can only be upset about that for a minute until he sees that normal smugness return Derek's eyes and alight.

He's not sure why he's annoyed at how far he's fallen, then, but he is.

"I'll give you a jump." Derek tells him quietly and goes back to his car, the engine still running in the quiet of the evening. Stiles doesn't know when Derek Hale grabbed hold of him, but he wonders if he'll ever regret it. Something like this would be easy in a book, to just skip to the end and see how it would turn out. It would be easy for him to have a manual to figure all this confusing mess out, because part of him hates Derek, part of him loathes Derek, but he's always with Derek, and he loves being with Derek.

Stiles sometimes wishes that someone had written a book on this.

But he figures his life hasn't been "textbook definition" in a _long_ time, because if anyone were to write a manual on this crap, it would be far too long and far too confusing. So he lets it slide and promises himself he'll get Derek back next time, and plots his revenge even as Derek hooks the jumper cables up to his battery in the middle of the night.

Derek will never know, and Stiles will never admit it, but he'll never have the heart to want revenge in this case.


End file.
